Billiken Great Joe Clarke Retiring After 27 Seasons at Wash U

[brianstl]

Billiken great and former Billiken head coach Joe Clarke is retiring after 27 years as head coach at Wash U.  Clarke, a defender, was a Third Team All-American at SLU.  He was named to the SLU All Half Century team in 2009.  He played on two national championship teams, on a another College Cup team and an elite eight team.  He was a member of the 1976 US Olympic Soccer Team which failed to qualify for the games.  Following SLU he played six seasons with the St. Louis Stars and the California Surf in the NASL and then one season with the Steamers in the MISL. As a coach 12 of his 14 teams at SLU made the NCAA tournament and they reached the College Cup in 1991.  It was the Billiken's first trip to the College Cup since 1974 (Clarke's junior season at SLU).  In his 27 years at Wash U his teams never had a losing season and made 11 trips to NCAA tournament. Clarke is a member of both the Billiken Hall of Fame and the St. Louis Soccer Hall of Fame.

Congrats on a great career to Joey Clarke. 

https://www.stltoday.com/sports/college/slu/joe-clarke-to-retire-after-a-life-in-st-louis-soccer/article_08df05b2-9c60-11ee-8f0c-2f172d9fd8ea.html#tracking-source=home-sports

[OkieBilliken]

I read an article a couple of years ago where Brian McBride was very complimentary of Clarke for his development.   Great coach.   Maybe fired too quickly.  

[brianstl]

45 minutes ago, OkieBilliken said:

I read an article a couple of years ago where Brian McBride was very complimentary of Clarke for his development.   Great coach.   Maybe fired too quickly.  

I like Clarke and that is a fair argument to make, but it is kind of hard to survive after a 5 win season at a program that previously had zero losing seasons.  The biggest problem for Clarke was that over his tenure the college soccer landscape changed dramatically and the SLU administration wasn't necessarily providing the resources needed to keep up with the highest level programs.  The first half of his career they were playing off campus out in Fenton at the Soccer Park.  Then they moved to the Billiken Sports Complex where the turf was so bad they had to move back out to the Soccer Park after a few seasons.  Warming came in and added to the nice roster Clarke left and took the Billikens to their last College Cup the next season.